ABSTRACT
Although Russia has poor institutions, its population is well-educated. The relative abundance of human capital is a potentially important factor that in principle could drive Russia’s future economic growth. However, in the absence of appropriate market institutions, human capital could be used to redistribute wealth, rather than create it, and thus not be growth-enhancing. This chapter examines measures for utilizing educational human capital in Russia and analyses the potential reasons for their negligible impact on economic growth. This analysis, as well as the results of recent empirical studies, shows that Russia’s abundant human capital will not promote economic growth unless institutional quality improves significantly.
